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The Problem With In-State Tuition
5742-Pielke-Commentary</p>
<p>Randy Enos for The Chronicle
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<p>By Roger Pielke Jr.</p>
<p>This past April, the Colorado House Education Committee rejected a bill that would have granted the children of undocumented state residents in-state university tuition. The issue pitted those who support educational opportunity for all young Colorado residents against those more concerned about the implications of legal citizenship for the receipt of state benefits. Both parties have valid concerns, yet there were, and still are, larger issues at stake.</p>
<p>Specifically, why does in-state tuition exist at all? Does it serve the state's larger goals?</p>
<p>At the University of Colorado at Boulder, where I am a professor, the distinction between in-state and out-of-state tuition categories is as familiar, and is as taken for granted, as the difference between engineering and law. It should be, having existed across the nation for generations. The subsidy of tuition for residents is supposed to facilitate state economic growth, based on the idea that high-school students and their parents choose colleges based largely on cost.</p>
<p>But do state tuition subsidies still make sense? No, and in fact, they may actually be harming our institutions by contributing to the budgetary problems of universities, diminishing the academic quality of the undergraduate population, and, ultimately, failing to contribute to state economic growth.
<p>In many cases, public universities are at least partially subsidized using the tax dollars of those who are residents and work in the state. Out of staters are not contributing tax dollars to support these universities…thus the higher costs for out of state students.</p>
<p>Let’s just keep shifting more of the burden of debt etc… to the vanishing middle class. In fact, maybe we all should find a family who makes at least 500k per year and send them private donations. Maybe that will create more jobs!! Woohoo!! </p>
<p>Sorry, I am having a terribly Frustrating day. :(</p>
<p>I work for a public university, and our president has been trying to get out-of-state tuition abolished. Why? Because our state demographics show a decline in young people, and if we don’t get students from other states, we will have declining enrollment and may eventually be out of business.</p>
<p>We have a unique funding structure and do not receive a lot of state money, but do receive some. State funding for higher education has dropped several years in a row, and is not likely to increase anytime soon. </p>
<p>We are implementing in-state tuition rate starting next fall (Fall 2012) for a border state (and they have a higher population of young people), with plans to expand it to other border states. It actually helps our economy if we have these out-of-state students come here, and purchase housing, food, clothing, gas, etc. Of course, there are those in our legislature complaining that “their money” is supporting these out of state students. But we’re not going to get any more of “their money” (state) but we will get “their money” (out-of-state student).</p>
<p>State universities with in-state subsidized tuition exist in the first place because, back when less than 10% of the population age 25 and older completed a bachelor’s degree, the states decided that increasing the educational level of the population would improve economic output in the state (and eventually pay back more than the cost of the state universities and in-state tuition subsidy).</p>
<p>Of course, that is also why many state universities emphasize “practical” subjects like engineering, architecture, agriculture, etc., such that are often quite well represented in the lists of top schools in those subjects.</p>
<p>One can make the argument that, with bachelor’s degrees reaching saturation at about 30-35% of the population age 25 and older, with many of those students studying subjects of low economic value (including popular expensive to teach subjects like biology), state subsidies to universities and in-state tuition may not be as well spent (from the state’s point of view) as they were in the past.</p>
<p>Start with a bad assumption, end up with bad conclusion.</p>
<p>I wonder what this Prof thinks would happen if all schools raised tuition to the actual degree-specific “cost of education?” A lot fewer engineers for sure.</p>
<p>Probably the biggest drop would be biology majors. Biology is a very popular major with poor job and career prospects. Due to lab requirements, it is also likely one of the more expensive majors to teach.</p>
<p>Pre-meds in non-biology majors might drop off the pre-med track more quickly if they get any low grades, since additional biology and chemistry courses would cost more than other courses in humanities, social studies, and math.</p>
<p>Among engineering majors, biomedical engineering would likely be hit the hardest, since it is relatively popular, but has worse job and career prospects than most other engineering majors.</p>
<p>They do this where I go. Business (where professors get paid more) and Engineering (where there are a lot of labs and more office hours and grad students are all funded) cost more than Liberal Arts. Business costs 8.7% more and Engineering 23% more than Liberal Arts. </p>
<p>Are people in Colorado dumber than people in the rest of the country? If not then why would charging a flat rate (presumably encouraging more people to come from other states and fewer people to come from Colorado) increase the competitiveness? How does increasing the size of the applicant pool increase the quality of the student body? </p>
<p>Someone explain this to me like I’m 4. I am not seeing the logic.</p>
<p>Actually, among Berkeley graduates for 2010, American Studies, Asian Studies, Ethnic Studies, Interdisciplinary Studies, Legal Studies, and Media Studies all reported higher average pay than Molecular and Cell Biology and Integrative Biology.</p>
<p>From the state’s point of view, it would appear that the in-state tuition subsidy gets a better deal on the “… studies” majors than on the biology majors, since the “… studies” majors cost less to teach, but go to higher paying jobs (more income taxes paid to the state later).</p>
<p>UCB, I would guess that the majority of people who go out and look for jobs after majoring in Bio-type majors are the ones who weren’t good enough to get into any med school of PHD program. Thus you’re looking at the worst Bio-type majors and the average American Studies, Asian Studies, etc major.</p>
<p>Um, I don’t believe that the Prof ever recommended that any school raise tuition to the actual degree-specific ‘cost of education’. </p>
<p>Rather, what the prof is asking is why should state residents receive a blanket tuition subsidy, regardless of whatever major they choose to study, and whether that subsidy can and should exist in the same form that it is today. For example, right now, a family who lived in Colorado for only a single year and therefore paid only that single year’s worth of state taxes but which is sufficient to establish state residency, and sends their child to the University of Colorado to major in engineering is surely receiving an educational value that far exceeds the total they will have to pay in both taxes and in-state tuition. Worst off are those long-time Colorado state residents who had paid decades worth of taxes yet either had no children, or had children that never attended UColorado, as they had effectively thrown their tax dollars away. </p>
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<p>Which is why the prof suggested an alternative savings/redistribution and voucher program where current state university taxpayer subsidies would instead be used to provide vouchers for Colorado state residents that could be used to pay to study at any school - public or private - in the state. The voucher could be indexed according to how long your family resided in the state: long-term residents would receive a larger voucher.</p>
<p>Of course, applied math majors are probably the best bang for the buck from the state’s point of view – no or few expensive labs needed, but relatively good job and career prospects with high pay (i.e. good for future income tax revenues and spending to generate more economic activity, at least if they stay within the state).</p>
<p>I believe the logic is quite simple: the larger the applicant pool, the more selective you can be and therefore the higher the quality of the average admittee. Let’s face it - Colorado is not exactly a highly populous state, with a state population of only around 5 million, far exceeded by the population residing only within the borders of New York City alone (to say nothing of the entire NYC metro area). You’re not really going to obtain the highest quality student body if you’re predominantly drawing upon the population of a small state like Colorado.</p>
<p>Of course if we really want to start talking about maximizing ‘bang for the buck’, then perhaps we could start talking about eliminating most humanities and social science graduate programs and research projects. What is the economic payoff of training another PhD in Art History? Or paying for professors to conduct more research into Art History?</p>
<p>Not to sidetrack from the main issue under discussion, but UCB, notice that many biology majors in the survey went on to research. Even for people with PhD degree, research is notoriously low paying for the amount of education one receives, and science research funds are often the first to be cut when the government’s short on money. </p>
<p>Would you suggest to students then that biology and research are not worth going into? Then where do we get our improvements and new discoveries in medicine? Some of those “popular expensive to teach subjects like biology” are important to society even if they hold no immediate monetary return.</p>
<p>As soon as you increase the size of the applicant pool you’re decreasing the yield. Sure they have more people to pick from but they then have to admit more people to compensate for the decrease in yield. The people who will chose not to attend will be the ones who got into a better school. They’re still going to get the same student body.</p>
<p>And while it might attract people from other states who might be “too good” for their state flagship but don’t want to pay a huge sum, they’re pushing out people from their own state who are too good for Colorado for whom the savings is no longer worth it. In effect, it seems more like they might get marginally better students from other states and lose top students from their own state.</p>
<p>I feel both anger and like crying. Another person in the public sector who just doesnt understand or just doesnt care that there is vast middle class who are neither on welfare nor are investment bankers. People with kids who dont get need based aid, nor can easily pay full freight. People who pay state taxes and expect a return on their investment. And then college admin people wonder why residents dont support them more.</p>
<p>I’ve noticed how a certain public university has become much more popular in our area recently. It offers in-state tuition to students from other states in its region–but only to those with 25+ ACT scores.
So the college becomes more well-known out-of-state, and filled with higher-scoring outsiders, (who are getting a great deal because this school is cheaper than paying in-state rates in their home state, PLUS, parents are bragging about the great “merit scholarship” their 25ACT kid got, and some kids like the idea of “going out-of-state” when 80% of their classmates are going down the road to Home State U.), Then the school can start rejecting more of its in-state 19-21 ACT scorers who tend to flunk out anyway. The school will get more $ out smarter students who continue on to junior/senior year and graduate–some may stay in the area, too. I saw an article recently that ND State has a high percentage of OOS students. It attracts a lot from MN with low costs. They have to import young people to keep the U. running.</p>
<p>I’ve also seen some popular public U’s start to accept a higher percentage of OOS students who are happy to pay OOS tuition because theirs is cheaper than a private u. and comparable to in-state rates in higher-cost states. Then these U’s become more competitive among in-staters, who feel it is unfair that they can’t go to their home state u.–when a lot of OOS kids can.</p>